


I Kind of Crashed My Dad's Spaceship

by doctorxdonna (badxwolfxrising)



Series: Earth Girls Are So Not Easy [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badxwolfxrising/pseuds/doctorxdonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Donna's daughter recalls how they came to leave Earth.  Sequel to In Fairness to Me, You're the One with the Fiery Hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Kind of Crashed My Dad's Spaceship

“I should probably warn you ahead of time...my parents are a bit...alien,” Freya cautioned her boyfriend Sheb as the two of them left the school library and began walking out to the back lot, where his hover car was parked under something that looked quite similar to a willow tree, but with purple leaves.

Sheb waved a hand dismissively at her. “So what? Are they like...not from this planet? Because a lot of people aren’t, and neither are you. It’s not a real big deal. My great-great-grandma on my mom’s side of the family was originally from Orascopeia. And my older sister married an android.”

Freya laughed as he unlocked the car, and the doors rose up to grant them access. “My parents are from a lot further away than Orascopeia. They’re not from this millenium, let alone this galaxy,” she said, dropping her voice. “In fact, technically they aren’t the same species, though you’d never know it by looking at them.”

Now Sheb was regarding her curiously. “How do you mean they aren’t the same species? YOU look human. At least the parts you’ve let me see do...” he said, a hint of wistfulness in his voice as he laid his hand on her knee.

Freya just rolled her eyes, and flipped through the radio stations as the car began to switch into hover mode. Why had she even opened her mouth in the first place? It wasn’t as though she could exactly elaborate in any sort of detail about it. The wrong words in the wrong time and place...she knew all about how quickly everything could be ruined. She had been eight years old when they had left Earth, and though that had only been eight years ago, it felt like an eternity to her.

When she stopped to think about it, it really was kind of fucked up. She’d been eight years old on the day her father had taken her hand and walked her back to the forbidden shed that he had always referred to at his ‘workshop’. Even as a child she had known better, but she had also feared the wrath of her mother too much to risk disobeying the rules and taking a peek. Even if she had dared to venture to do so on her own, it wasn’t as though she would’ve understood what she was seeing without her father to explain it to her.

_“Dad, what’s a police public call box?”_

_“They didn’t really have them here in America, but in England, where your Mum is from, they used to be all over the place. If you were out and about and needed help from the police, you could just open the little door and phone them. Sometimes, they’d even keep the bad guys locked up in them, at least temporarily, until someone could come collect them. But this...well, the police box is just a facade. Would you like to have a look inside?” he asks with a smile._

Looking back on the moment, Freya realized just how terrified her father had actually been when he’d asked her this. It wasn’t in his face, but in his eyes. She knew, because she saw those same eyes looking back at her in the mirror sometimes, and there was something there, something hidden that she didn’t understand. It was like a part of herself was locked away inside her mind-hidden away from everything else, so she didn’t have to think about it constantly, but when she stopped and stared in the mirror, or sometimes at night when everything was silent, a little voice in her head whispered that something was missing.

_”Yes,” she says to him. Because she was a child, and what child wouldn’t be curious about what was behind those faded blue doors? Her father stares at the doors for what seems like forever after she had answered him, but finally and with great reluctance, he slides the old key into the Yale lock, pushes the doors open (in spite of the fact that the sign on the door clearly read “Pull”), takes her hand and walks inside._

_“Are we in Narnia?” she asks, looking around the room in wonder._

_Her father laughs. “No, sweetie. We aren’t in a different world, we’re still in our shed.. We just happen to be inside our shed...inside my spaceship.”_

_“This is a spaceship?” she says skeptically, running her hands over buttons and levers under her father’s watchful gaze. “It doesn’t look anything like the ones on TV. And it looks smaller on the outside.”_

_“Yes, it’s a spaceship. It’s actually a time machine, too, the last of its kind,” he says with great sadness. “And it’s trans-dimensional, which is why it doesn’t look as big as it actually is from the outside. If the outside were as big as the inside, it’d be bigger than the Titanic several times over.”_

_“You’re lying,” she accuses without even thinking about it. To her eight year old mind, the idea of a ship that big is impossible._

_“Cross my heart and hope to die. Or regenerate rather, but we’ll get to that later. It’s really a spaceship and a time machine. Your good ol’ Dad may like to yarn, but he wouldn’t lie to you about this. This is what you come from, Freya. This is important.”_

_“So...if you have a spaceship,” she remarks carefully, slowly choosing her words. “Does that mean you’re an alien from outer space?”_

_“Yes, actually. Way outer space, galaxies away from Earth. I’m not human, and neither are you, not technically. Does that scare you?”_

_“No. I mean..that isn’t a costume or anything, right? You’re still my dad, you’re not really green with a big head?” she asks him, trying to hide how scared she is. He must have sensed this, because he takes her by the shoulders and gives her a fierce hug. Then, he starts pulling on his skin to demonstrate that no, it does not in fact peel off to reveal a slobbering green alien underneath._

_“I’m still just your Dad, and this is how I look. But Freya, do you know why I brought you in here?” he asks her seriously, taking his glasses out of his pocket and putting them on. She knew whatever he was about to tell her was important. He always put his glasses on right before he said things that were really smart. Well, sometimes. Sometimes he said things that were just silly or plain didn’t make sense. But he almost always wore his glasses when he was telling her something important._

_“No,” she says, although she hates admitting it. Sometimes when he asks her questions, she got the feeling that he almost expects her to know the answers. A lot of the times she did, but sometimes she didn’t, and she hates disappointing him._

_“Freya, before you were born, I was the very last of my kind. All the rest of my people are dead, there is no one else. Now you are the last. Your brother has a bit of it, but not like you do. I wish this was something I didn’t have to talk about with you, but unfortunately I do. Freya, the voices in your head will be awakening soon, if they haven’t begun to already. And I just want you to understand it all, so that you aren’t afraid when it happens. There’s something else I have to show you. Freya, hold tight to my hand. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear..don’t let go,” he instructs her. If she hadn’t been afraid before, she certainly was after that._

_Her father leads her deep into the bowels of the timeship, holding tightly to her hand the whole way. The further they go, the darker it becomes, and the more spooked Freya is by it all. This is even scarier than the haunted hayride at Arasapha Farms, and there are no monsters, ghosts, or goblins here._

_Not that she can see, anyway. She feels things though, as if she is being watched by a thousand unseen eyes, and that feeling is more terrifying. Even worse, her father is unusually silent. Normally, he’d be chattering away a mile a minute, telling her this and that so fast that it sometimes made her head spin. Today, he was quiet, as though something were weighing heavily on him. She wishes he would say something, anything at all, to reassure her. His silence only unsettles her even more._

_When they finally come to a stop, it’s outside a big metal door that she notices with unease to be slightly coffin shaped. There’s a single, circular window like a porthole on the door, and through it she can see...well, she isn’t entirely sure what it is. The light though is almost blinding._

_Her father is rocking back and forth on his heels now, pulling his fingers through his hair until it is standing up on all ends, muttering to himself in a weird language that makes her skin crawl. The words don’t mean anything to her when she hears them, but in her mind she gets vague impressions of a planet so far away, lost in time._

_“Dad?” she says, reaching out and pulling on his tshirt. He looks down at her, a startled and guilty expression on his face._

_“I can’t believe I’m even thinking about doing this,” he whispers to someone who isn’t there. He’s looking off into space when he says this, and not at Freya. Very quickly, he yanks open the door and ushers her inside. The door swings shut behind them with a clang, but the sound is swallowed in the fierce, gusting wind. Freya is staring up at something that looks like a burning sun, if that fire burned like ice. She feels like she wants to scream staring at it, but she can’t look away. On the wind she hears faint whispers, and like her father’s strange mumblings, they leave the impressions of even stranger images on her, things she can’t begin to comprehend._

_“What is it?” she whispers to her father._

_“It’s the Eye of Harmony,” he replies, his voice devoid of its usual warmth and cheeriness. He just sounds anxious, and as scared as she feels, which isn’t helping to comfort her at all. If he is so scared, why are they doing whatever it is they’re doing?_

_“How can it be an eye if it’s a star?” she asks, oblivious to the wild-eyed look he gives her when she says this. She is still staring up at the bright, burning, pulling orb suspended in the sky, and she doesn’t even pause to think about how or why a sky with a burning cold star is in the middle of a spaceship._

_“My people...our people, the Time Lords, called it the Eye of Harmony because it held everything in balance. They sometimes called it Rassilon’s Star, as well-he was one of the ones who harnessed it and used it to bring the power of time travel to the Time Lords. This is merely a copy of the original, but the principle is the same-an exploding star, permanently suspended in a constant state of decay, providing unlimited power and energy to travel across space and time. We can’t stay here much longer-you’ll go insane and burn if you stare into it for too long. Just another moment…” he whispers, seemingly transfixed himself._

_“Daddy, if it’s so dangerous...why did you bring me here?”._

_He is silent. After a moment, he takes her by the elbow and guides her back through the metal door. On the other side, he takes something out of his pocket and holds it out to her. She recognizes the odd carvings of his fob watch immediately, and wonders why he took her to the middle of a spaceship to give her an old watch. Vaguely, she also wonders if he might not still crawl out of his skin to reveal the other creature that’s surely taken possession of her father. When she will not take it from him, he drops it into her hand. Reflexively, she closes her hand around it._

_The watch feels warm, warmer than it should be given how cold the room they just came from was. She turns it over in her fingers, noting with curiosity that it almost seems to hum as she touches it. She finds herself opening it before she’s quite sure why and when she does a golden mist begins to spill out of it, bathing her father in brilliant light. She isn’t sure if the watch is open for seconds or eternity before it closes, but before it does she sees things. Wonderful and terrible things, a world with rich, red grass, soaring mountains, and twin suns. She sees men and women in strange robes with collars that come up behind their heads. She sees her father’s face, but also the faces of many she doesn’t quite recognize, but who still seem familiar for some reason. She sees the explosion the universe believed destroyed her father’s home world, Gallifrey, and she sees the ones who caused it._

_With a gasp, she drops the watch to the ground, where it clicks shut._

_“What did you see?” he asks her._

_“I...I’m not sure,” she says, her voice trembling._

_“Freya, damnit, what did you see?!” he shouts._

_She begins to cry then, the fear and confusion finally proving to be too much. Before her eyes become completely cloudy with tears, she catches a glimpse of the expression on her father’s face: self-loathing. And where did that word come from, anyway? It’s one of the many strange, new things that seem to be floating through her head now, things that she now knows but can’t seem to remember learning. She feels so strange, so distracted, so terrified by whatever it was that had just happened in there, in addition to still absorbing the news that both her father and herself are, apparently, aliens._

_“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so, so sorry,” he whispers as he picks her up and hitches her over his shoulder the way he would when she was a young child. She’s probably a bit too big to be carried like this, but right now neither of them cares. Her father carries her back through the labyrinth of the spaceship, back to the room where they were before._

_The entire time he just whispers, “I’m sorry, Freya. I’m so, so sorry.”_

“Baby?” Sheb looked at her anxiously with those topaz eyes of his. “You alright? You look like you were a million light years away.”

“I was,” she yawned in response, and she sounds so much like a child to herself that for one hysterical little moment she wondered if she actually managed to cross time.

“Yeah, obviously. You totally spaced out. We’re at your house. I was just asking if you wanted to go in or not, sometime this century perhaps?”

“Shut up, todger,” she quipped, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she got out of the car.

“Aww, see that’s how I know you REALLY love me!” Sheb exclaimed, punching her playfully on the arm as they walked up the steps to the front porch. Before Freya could even open the front door, it whipped open to reveal her mother on the other side, looking slightly irate.

“And just what time do you call this, little miss? You’re late, and the roast is drying out as we speak,” Donna Smith chided as Freya and Sheb stepped in the door.

“Sorry, Mum, drama went late today. The boys who play Claudio and Benedick got caught in the bathroom licking some toads they’d gotten out of the science lab, and they were suspended. There was much bickering over who got to read their parts instead,” she said contemptuously, rolling her eyes.

“Oh I’ll tell you Freya, that head master of yours is no fun. I rather think a psychedelic version of Much Ado About Nothing would be quite entertaining. And this must be Sheb? Pleased to meet you, I’m Freya’s father, John.”

“Stop and take a breath why don’t you, Dad?” Freya sighed.

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Smith. Freya’s an awesome girl, smart and pretty. Just like her Mum, I see,” Sheb winked.

“Please, call us Donna and John. Flattery will get you everywhere, by the way. Wash your hands and have a seat at the table. What would you like to drink? Tea, water, milk, mango juice?”

“Ah, just a glass of water would be fine, Mrs..Donna,” Sheb corrected himself.

“Comin’ right up. Jamie! Get your skinny little arse down to the dinner table, please and thank you!” Donna yelled up the stairs as she rounded back around to the kitchen, where Freya’s father was poking a spoon into a pot of something tasty-smelling on the stove. Donna whispered something in her husband’s ear and he laughed, turning to plant a kiss on her lips.

“Your parents are cute together,” Sheb remarked. “How much older did you say your Dad was than your Mum? He doesn’t look old at all.”

“Ugh, my parents will give you diabetes if you aren’t careful. They’re so sweet on each other, it’ll make you want to vomit sugar,” Freya said, twisting a lock of her hair around her fingers.

Sheb didn’t even really notice that she had dodged the second half of his question. “Awww, I think it’s sweet. I hope we’re still that in love when we get to be their age.” he says, watching her parents dance around the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Freya said with a smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. Sheb didn’t really notice that bit either.

“Only thing though...I mean, I’m no geneticist or anything,” Sheb whispered. “But how come you’ve got blonde hair if your Mum’s a ginger and your Dad’s...just sorta brown? You aren’t adopted are you? I mean, I don’t care if you are...I want you to be able to tell me anything.”

“No, I’m not adopted,” she replied, the far off look coming back into her eyes. “My dad’s hair wasn’t always brown. Genetics are a funny thing, sometimes.”

_”Daddy, I’m still scared...I don’t understand. What did you show me?” Freya asks._

_“I showed you what you truly came from. Your roots, your history...our people are just the stuff of legends now…” her father says, regarding her seriously._

_“But Daddy, there was a man with a strange face...and an explosion..and it was you. You blew it up, your own home. Why?” she asks, in that soul-piercingly innocent way that only a child can._

_“Because I had to,” he says softly, and he takes her hand and squeezes it. When he does, her mind fills with images of metal beasts that are full of nothing but hate, shooting lasers from guns that look alarmingly harmless. “In the name of peace and sanity, to save the rest of the universe, to save Time itself...I had to.”_

_She thinks maybe she is starting to understand, but her head feels swimmy and full of strange things still. “Okay?” she musters._

_“Freya, this next bit is very important...what happened here today, what I showed you? That stays between you and me. Not a word to your mother, not a word to Jamie. Do you understand? They aren’t like us, they won’t be able to understand. It will have to be a special secret, just between you and me, okay?” he asks her. When she doesn’t answer, he prompts her. “Sweetheart...just between you and me, yeah?”_

_“Yeah Dad...sure,” she says, because she hates disappointing him. But she wonders what would happen if she said anything, and whether her Mum knows that she married an alien. Part of her feels like that’s the sort of thing a Mum ought to know about a Dad. But she makes him the promise, and she means it, as well as any average eight year old can, anyway. “But what are we dad...you and me? What are we that is so different from Mum and Jamie?”_

_“We are Time Lords, Freya. We walk in eternity,” he says in an eerily calm voice._

_“Yeah, but that what does that mean?”_

_“It means that after your Mum and Jamie are dust, you and I will still be here. After our house has fallen down and crumbled in on itself...you and I will still be here. But only if you want it. One day, you’ll be given a choice. You can stay like Mum and Jamie...or you can become like me.”_

_“When?” she asks._

_“Only you will know that, love,” he says sadly._

_Later that same night, she creeps out of bed and back out into the shed, which her father had not remembered to lock when they had left earlier than afternoon. She pushes on the doors of the blue box, almost expecting them to be locked. They yield easily to her, and almost unable to help herself in spite of the terror she still feels, she steps back inside the control room of her father’s spaceship._

_This time, he isn’t there to watch her run her hands over all the buttons and levers. It’s only the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing that jolts her parents out of their sleep. By the time they make it out to the shed, she’s gone._

“Hey space cadet, I asked you how drama practice was,” Jamie said, poking her in the ribs. She slapped his hand away reflexively.

“Sorry, I was thinking. You should try it sometime,” she said flippantly, and without thinking about it. She remembered Sheb sitting on her opposite side, and wondered how long she’d spaced out for. He didn’t have a dazed look of panic on his face, so she assumed it hadn’t been long.

“Freya, be nice,” her mother said in a warning tone.

“Drama practice was fine,” she replied, looking at her brother. “The play will be in a couple of weeks.”

“I’m sure you’ll be brilliant,” her father said, passing her a bowl of vegetables. “I can’t wait to see it. So Sheb, are you in the play?”

“No, I’m just on the stage crew. I help paint and put together sets, stuff like that. I’m more of a behind the scenes kind of guy,” Sheb said, spooning up some stew.

“Behind the scenes is good. Lots of interesting stuff goes on there,” John said, nodding. “I’ve always been a behind the scenes kind of guy myself.”

Freya snorted derisively at this admission, and her father just gave her a look, daring her to say something about it. She ate her stew silently, keeping her thoughts to herself. Again, she lets her mind drift.

_Inside the time machine, Freya realizes that things might have gotten out of control. The console is shooting sparks and the movement of the ship sends her reeling around the room. She doesn’t know where she’s going or what’s going to happen, but she’s terrified. She’s still not sure how she even got the ship to start moving. Somehow, her hands had selected the necessary levers and buttons to incite movement, almost as if the knowledge were ingrained in her mind. The problem is, she isn’t sure how to land the ship now that it’s in flight._

_“Dad is going to kill me!” she exclaims to no one in particular as the time ship crash lands with a violent thump, sending her tumbling. She smashes her head against the console, and as a bell begins to toll, she loses consciousness._

Her father is looking at her curiously, and Freya gets the distinct feeling that he knows what she’s thinking. Clearing her throat, she asks him to pass the stew and busies herself with ladling a second serving into her bowl. She’s not sure why she’s stuck in the past today, but the memory of crashing her father’s ship and regenerating as a result of the ensuing accident is as fresh as if it happened yesterday. She remembers the overwhelming terror, confusion, and pain she felt, waking up to her body glowing and changing before her eyes. She also remembers the relief she’d felt when her parents had found her, crashed in a park a few miles from their home. They hadn’t even been angry, as she’d expected, just worried and relieved and scared when they realized how close she’d come to dying. But she hadn’t died...she’d just changed. And that was when her parents had decided that maybe life on Earth wasn’t for their family. It was all her fault.

And she could never tell anyone. Especially not Sheb or her friends at school. Her father had told her that they were different, and that other people wouldn’t understand, and she knew he was right. It made her sad, though. Her mother understood and she wasn’t like them...but she gathered that her mother was a special case. Idly, she wondered if she would ever have the sort of seemingly ‘normal’ life that her parents had, if that was the sort of life she even wanted. Honestly, she wasn’t sure. Something in her craved to see the stars, and she knew there was one surefire way to do that.

“Something on your mind, sweetheart?” her mother asked.

“Homework. Got a whole load of it,” she replied, the lie rolling easily off her tongue. Her father shot her a meaningful glance, but she looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. “I’ll clear the table for dessert.”

“Here, let me help you,” her father said, getting up. He followed her into the kitchen, carrying the pot from the stew. In front of the sink, he cleared his throat.

“What?” she asked, not bothering to mask her irritation.

“You know what. I can’t help but hear your thoughts when you’re practically broadcasting them. You need to practice putting up walls, for your own sake,” he said mildly.

“How?” she asked, turning the water on. 

“I’ll teach you,” he said simply.

* * * * *

That night, after Sheb had left, her father met her up in her room. Jamie and her mother were downstairs, watching TV, so they had their privacy. They sat on her bed, crosslegged and facing each other.

“Just imagine a door in your mind, and your thoughts are in the room beyond it. Now try closing the door,” her father instructed.

She closed her eyes and did as she was told. “Is it working?” she asked.

“Well, I can’t hear what you’re thinking right now. See, you can do this,” he encouraged.

“Well, I wish I didn’t have to do this. Most people’s fathers aren’t telepathic,” she groused.

“Most people aren’t telepathic. It’s a gift and a curse, depending on how you use it. You already know to ignore other people’s thoughts, you just have to work on not broadcasting your own,” her father said. “You can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your thoughts. It’ll start coming to you easier, the more you practice.”

“Do you ever read mum’s mind?” she asked.

“Not intentionally, no,” he admitted. “Your mum is good at masking her thoughts, but every once in a while I’ll pick up on something.”

“Isn’t that weird for you?” she questioned.

“Not really. But I’ve had years and years to get used to it. You haven’t,” he said gently. “Which, and I hope this goes without saying, but you shouldn’t be trying to read people’s minds, either.”

“I know. But sometimes you can’t help it. Some people think so loud,” she said. “I try to block them out, but it’s not always easy.”

“I never promised it would be easy, it’s just what must be done,” he said. “Being Time Lord comes with responsibilities.”

“I didn’t ask for this, you know. What if I don’t want these responsibilities? What if I just want to be normal?” she cried, frustrated.

Her father reached out to embrace her. “You made your choice the night you stole the TARDIS. A normal life just isn’t for you. And this is just part of that. I can take it away if you really want...but it’ll hurt.”

“More than it hurt to regenerate?” she asked.

“Not more. Just different,” he replied. “It’s a process I’ve been through before. I could help you become completely human. At the most, you might retain a low level telepathy, but you wouldn’t be able to regenerate and you’d live a normal human lifespan, age n” to travel,” she said wistfully.

“No one said you can’t travel, or see the stars. You’re older now, I think I could convince your mother to let us take the TARDIS out for a spin,” her father said, smiling. “After all, you’ll have to learn to pilot it eventually. One day, it’ll be yours.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” he confirmed. “Not for a while yet, but when I’m gone, it’ll be yours.”

“I don’t want to imagine the world without you, dad,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. He stroked her hair absentmindedly.

“Come on. It’s the weekend, and there’s no time like the present for a trip through the stars. Let’s go fetch your mother and Jamie,” he said, getting up off the bed.

“Seriously? Why now?” she asked him.

“Because you asked. And you know I can never say no to you,” he replied with a smile.

* * * * *

Standing at the open doors of the TARDIS and looking out at the solar system, Freya felt whole for the first time in a long time. Her brother stood next to her, her parents behind her, all of them absorbed by the sight before them.

“It’s beautiful. How did you ever give this up?” she said, turning to look at her parents.

“It wasn’t easy, but we gave it up so we could have a family. At the time, it was more important to keep you children safe than anything else,” her mother remarked.

“We were admittedly a little jeopardy friendly when we travelled. Got into all sorts of trouble. It was rarely was as peaceful as just drifting in space,” her father added.

“Trouble is putting it mildly,” her mother quipped with a laugh. “I think disaster sought us out some of the time. But I wouldn’t have traded any of it for the world. For you kids, but not the world.”

“Can we go looking for trouble?” Jamie asked. “Because that sounds more exciting than going to school.”

“You get into enough trouble at school I think, young man. Besides, keeping you safe is still number one priority,” the Doctor said, busying himself at the console. “But perhaps we could take a trip to Earth, just for old time’s sake. Donna?”

“I think it’s alright with me if it’s fine with you,” she replied.

“Then we’re off!” the Doctor exclaimed, thumping the mallet against the console with a gleeful whoop.

Freya thought her parents looked the happiest she’d seen them in a long time. She smiled to herself as she turned back to the door and watched space unfolding around them.


End file.
